November 20, 2004
SF_NAS.txt
To the Parents:
In the Matter of Steve H. Leung OD and Alfred H. Bossino.
Dear Sir,
I am a senior scientists, astrophysicist and nuclear
physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a member of the
National Academy of Sciences of the USA. For all of my scientific
career I have been dedicated to understanding the cause of natural
phenomena. From the age of 13 years, now 66 years ago, I
recognized that the standard response to myopia was perhaps miss
guided. Instead I used positive lens glasses to correct, or alter
my focal environment, namely one of reading nearly all the time.
(A positive lens "corrects" a near-point focal environment by
altering the light rays to be more parallel from the near-point
object. as if the print were made more distant.) Being young and
therefore developmentally plastic, my eyes and their focal
properties immediately responded. Within just a few weeks, the
clarity or focus of distant objects had been restored. This was
just as I expected from scientific arguments. I had to maintain a
positive lens for reading thereafter. This was a small price to
pay for perfect distance vision for all my life.
I have continued an effort to bring this awareness of the
focal adaptation of the natural eye to the public, but
unfortunately the ease and immediate response of the standard
treatment of using a negative lens to reverse the myopic
adaptation to a near point environment is so immediate and so
rewarding to the myope that I and a few associates have not been
successful. This is regardless of the decades after the ground
breaking scientific research by Dr. Francis Young, and Dr.
Howard Howland and others.
I have worked scientifically with Prof. Joshua Wallman of
City College New York where his research on the response of the
natural eye to focal and neurological environments is leading the
fundamental research on this topic in the US. The animal model
used is the recovery function of the deprivation induced myopia of
the chicken eye. Here myopia and recovery can be altered by 10
diopters in a few weeks. This extreme animal model allows many
factors of influence to be investigated in a short time. Although
the complexity of the response of the eye is extraordinary and a
detailed understanding of the mechanisms still eludes all in the
scientific field, nevertheless there is no experiment, no
anecdotal example that contradicts, and no doubt in my mind that
myopia in all animals, including humans, is induced in response to
a near point environment.
In view of this research and countless personal successful
examples the growing number of myopic individuals in the world is
deplorable, when such a simple remedy is available to the public.
Steve H. Leung OD is a dedicated optometrist who has
taken a lead in attempting to bring this knowledge and
benefit to their patients.
For them to be persecuted within his own professional
societies is wrong. He should be lauded and encouraged instead.
I am reminded of the first health professionals who spoke out
about the health problems that smoking brings to a society.
Theirs was a difficult task, but now thirty years later, smoking
in the US has declined to a negligible fraction of society. If
we, as a culture, can give up smoking, we can also be weaned from
the negative lens.
I do hope and recommend that you strongly support what these
dedicated optometrists are bringing to your profession.
Sincerely yours,
Stirling A. Colgate Ph.D.
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(Signature is on file)
Dr. Colgate is a Senior Fellow Los Alamos National Laboratory
and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.